Presently in the fruit industry, more specifically in the apple industry, fruit is traditionally handpicked. The pickers carefully pick selected fruit and place the picked fruit in apple bags which are worn on the shoulders of the pickers, and which extend downward over the chest and abdomen to the groin. The pickers then gently release the bagged fruit into large bins for later transport to a packing or processing plant. This technique provides for the pickers to select the desired fruit “on-tree” by utilizing the visually discernible criteria of color, size and quality.
Good pickers remove the fruit from the tree while keeping the stem intact on the fruit so as to maintain the integrity of the following years' fruiting bud on the tree. On occasion, the picking operations must contend with the clipping of overly stiff or long stems; the gentle placement of the fruit into the picking bag to prevent bruising; and the transfer and delivery of the fruit to a larger size container, better adapted for truck transport. Fruit located on high limbs may require that the picker climb a ladder or stand on a scaffold to reach the fruit. The fruit bins are usually placed in the row between tree lines and spaced so that they can be filled by apples transferred from the picker's bag within the shortest walking distance. The bins are then picked up by an apple trailer pulled by a tractor and taken to a common holding site awaiting forklift placement onto a flatbed truck.
This fruit picking process results in about 30% of the pickers time actually picking fruit, with the remaining 70% of the time is spent gently placing the fruit into bags or bins after having clipped the stems when required, moving and climbing up and down letters, carrying fruit from one place to another, then walking and carefully releasing the picker bag load of apples into the collecting bin, taking special care not to cause a blemish or bruise on the fruit by rough handling. The picker bag load may weigh 40 pounds or more leading to fatigue of the picker and a reduction in efficiency.
Due to the seasonal nature of the fruit harvest, fruit pickers are frequently migrant workers, often from other countries. As a result of increasingly stringent immigration policies, a sufficient numbers of pickers may not be available to pick the fruit at harvest time. Due to the slowness of the fruit handpicking process, large numbers of pickers are required when the fruit reaches the proper point of ripeness. Since individual productivity is low when fruit is handpicked, wages remain low for the individual picker. This results in the propagation of a population of below average wage earners.
Thus it is an object of this invention to provide a mechanized system for improving the productivity of the individual picker while maintaining the advantages of the hand picking process namely, selectivity of fruit to be picked, gentleness to prevent bruising at all stages of movement and packing.
It is another object of the invention to provide this mechanized system in a mobile form.
It is yet another object to provide an optional mechanized system which will identify and divert so-called culls which consist of bruised, infested or otherwise unacceptable fruit or like objects.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings. Throughout the drawings, like reference numbers refer to like parts.